Ava eating her second first birthday cake

As promised a week ago, here is Ava eating her second first birthday cake. This was on her actual birthday.

Chill-ax-in'

Ava woke up a bit too early this morning (5:30am) so daddy made her a bed of pillows to chillax in!

Messy pasta and playareas

Me and my new car seat!!! she didn't look as happy as she was, but I think she likes that she can look out front.

Today we decided to get out and went to San Tan Shopping center to buy some wine because our wine fridge was looking a little bare. While we were there, we thought it would be fun to take Ava to the kids play area. She had a lot of fun watching the other kids. Here are a couple of pictures.

There was a hole that Ava is looking into and you could crawl through it and there was another kid on the other side that Ava was "playing" with.

Ava had a lot of fun playing, but every time we took her out, she threw a mini fit. All I have to do is distract her and then she is fine. Daddy didn't leave her side. When I was down there watching her, some kids came running around the corner and knocked Ava over. She cried for all of 2 seconds, but I got a dirty look from Daddy. Ava was fine, but the kids didn't even apologize, how RUDE!!!

I made tortellini with Pasta sauce for lunch with beets on the side and some milk to wash it all down with. She loved it.

Her little tantrums are getting a little bit worse, but i guess that is to be expected. I am staying calm and trying to get her onto the next thing. She is only one, how can this be! I must teach her to speak TODAY!!! Just kidding, of course. It is part of her growing up and expressing herself. I keep remembering something that I read that said that she only does this because she feels "safe" enough with us to do it. She wouldn't do it if she didn't think we cared.

We are still working on weaning away the bottle. So far today she hasn't had one, but I might give in tonight just to get some liquids in her. We will see. She is enjoying her milk and being a "big girl" with her sippy cups.

The fun of turning One!

(Ava eating puffs from the chair after her nap)

Oh the fun of turning One! The most exciting thing was that we got to turn Ava's carseat around to face forward. Mike did it Wednesday night, because I have off on Thursdays and Fridays and I wanted to take her for her first car ride facing forward. She loved it! She could see everything and I loved it because I could see her. She sang to the music with me. It was great. Now we can both sit in the front seat when we go anywhere. I usually sat in the back with Ava in the event there was a meltdown. I will post a picture later!
Now that I officially consider her a toddler, I decided to read up on Toddlers. I bought and started reading the Baby whisperer, Toddler years. I brought Ava up on it as a baby and followed the EASY schedule, which worked well for our family. Now there are a whole new set of developmental issues that she will go through and I want to figure out how to handle them. This is a hard time right now because she can't speak, so I try to decode everything. Hopefully this book will give me insight to my "textbook" baby. Not sure that is her category 100% but that is the result from the baby whisperer Quiz!
We went and bought our first pair of "big girl" sneakers thanks to nana and grandpa Ron. We went to Stride rite and bought a pink pair of sneaker/sandal shoes. A lot like those Merrill shoes. She is a sweaty footed kid so with the AZ heat coming, I thought those would be best. Apparently she wears a 5.5 wide!! Right now she is in 5's,but this allows her to grow into them. Aren't they cute......

We went to the Waste Management Open today. It was a lot of fun and boy did we get a lot of smiles, points and laughs at Ava. Everyone stopped us and said what a cute baby and of course commented on her infamous hair. "I love the hair" is what we heard the most. It was quite the adventure. I was just happy she didn't decide to use her voice as any of the golfers teed off. She did want to run around, which was hard. Mike got last minute greenskeeper passes so we went to the one with food and it was packed. She did pretty good, but we had to leave when Ava wanted to walk around and not let me hold her hand. When I would pick her up to redirect her, she would let out a loud noise to let me know not to do that. That is when we went up to the quieter booth to hang out.

We have officially turned to "real milk" vs. formula. I thought it was going to be hard, but I did her first bottle with 4oz formula and the rest milk. Then I went to 2 oz formula and the rest milk and now we are 100% milk. The only issue Ava is having with it is that it is so cold. She is used to drinking formula that is room temperature. She will stop often and stick her tongue out and go ahhh and then drink some more. It is pretty funny, but she must get a brain freeze! I bought a small thing of formula just in case and now am going to return it.

One Year doctor appointment

Ava had her one year check up today. After waiting for an hour and a half, we finally saw our peditrician. Ava is high up there on the charts. She weighs 24 lbs, which is in the 89th percentile and is 31 1/2" long, which is in the 99th percentile!!! Her head measures 18 1/2", which is the 86th percentile. She is, as Dr. Jafri says, her big girl!!! She obviously has her daddy's genes.
She had to get her hemogloben checked, which is a finger prick and she DID NOT like that. She wouldn't even wave goodbye to the nurse because she was so mad at her. I realized today, that Ava needs to be with other babies. As we were waiting in the waiting room, there was another boy a little bit older, but not by much and Ava was smiling at him. They were playing with the only toy-thingy that had in the office (one of those things that has the beads that you move around the wire). He was hiding on the floor and Ava would duck down to look under the table and smile at him. It was too cute. She loves to see other babies.
Her newest thing is to book it when I ask her certain things that she knows she is either not supposed to do or doesn't want to get caught. For example, if she takes a poo-poo and i ask her, she will run as fast as she can towards our bedroom door. She doesn't realize yet that she will get cornered and I will catch her. If she puts something in her mouth to eat and I ask, "what's in your mouth", she will do the same thing and run as fast as she can towards our room. Now,when she is doing something that she isn't supposed to, like trying the pull the hallway nightlight out of the socket, and I say "no", she will start to throw a fit and clap her hands. It is hard not to laugh, but I have to be firm. She knows when she is doing something wrong and it is fun to watch her see if she can get away with it. A lot of times when we are outside, she will pick up a rock or a leaf and open her mouth and move the "object" towards her mouth, but pause just before doing it and look at me. Boy is she testing us!

It's my first birthday party!

It has been a busy,crazy week! Our household has been sick this week. I was so nice to share all my germs with everyone! So far Ava is in the clear. She has a bit of a runny nose,but we think it's teeth,because she is gnawing on her fingers as if they were candy. She has also started up with poor sleep habits again. She has been waking at least one time either late night or EARLY morning. She has been on a 5:30am wake up lately too!!! Napping is all over the board too. Thursday she took an hour and 10 min nap in the am and 45 min nap in the afternoon. She usually takes 2 one hour and half naps. Of course it was on my day and not when Jaclyn is here babysitting.
I took Ava to the park on Monday and she had a blast. While she still doesn't like the swing, she loved all the kids palying. She loves people "her size" and she squeals in delight. She went up to most of them. We took her on the slide. She was indifferent. She loved loved wood chips that cover the ground. After lunch is when we go for our walks and I now end them at the park. I want her to enjoy the swing and everything the park has to offer because I plan on spending a lot of time there. (At least until the summer heat).

Yesterday was Ava's first birthday party with all her family. Grandma Nini and Auntie Nancy made the trek from LA for the occassion. Of course, the rain didn't hold out. It started to rain fairly hard as the guests arrived. It let up a bit during the party and then was gorgeous after everyone left. Go figure! Ava had a blast. She had bunny by her side the whole time, which made things easier on her. She walked around, but wouldn't let anyone hold her and made sure mommy or daddy was close by. Overall, I was surprised at how well she did. Here are a couple of pictures from the party...

Ava and Auntie Nancy (picture above)

Here is a picture of Ava when we were singing Happy Birthday... She didn't know what to make

of the "papparizzi" taking pictures and singing..

Below are pictures of her eating her cake...She IS her mother's daughter. She loved the cake and would have eaten the whole thing,but i didn't want her to go into sugar shock. It was a rainbow chip cake with rainbow chip frosting. That was my favorite cake growing up.

here are just some pics from the party...

I am so mad that we didn't get any video. I think I might go out and get a cupcake for tonight and sing to her again and take video and I will post later. Overall, it was such a great day.

I will be remembering it forever. It was actually a year ago today that I woke at 3:50 am and my water broke. I called to mike and said, Hon, my water broke. He jumped out of bed and asked if he could shower. I said No, but he got in anyway. We were off to the hospital. I was a 1/2 cm dialated when I got there and was in labor for 18 hours. After about 8 hours is when I got my epidural. At 10:41pm, Ava was born via c-section because I never progressed past 5 cm. She is the joy of our life. She has such an amazing personality and is so loving. She brightens our day and can't believe how lucky we are!

Happy Valentines Day!

my little valentine! pink and red with hearts!

Here is my little girl "chillaxin" on the couch for her morning bottle.

such a cutie! Happy V-day to everyone! No big plans here. I think we will keep it simple. I know that in a year, that won't be so easy to do. I will probably have an entire day planned out with heart shaped pancakes to start the day! So, for now, I will enjoy a low key day. My mom is coming down this afternoon, so Mike and I might sneak out for a drink. Something we never get to do these days. We had a pretty uneventful weekend so far. Ava wanted to be around her daddy this weekend. We went to Total Wine to stock up our pretty bare wine fridge and Ava didn't want to be in the cart. Not the most kid friendly place. So Mike decided to take her out and let her walk around. That would have been fine, but she doesn't quite get that she needs to hold our hand and apparently went up to some lady who Mike said was buying "cheap box wine" and wanted to push her cart. Oops! Mike redirected her, but then got to a point where he had to pick her up and let's just say the entire store heard her. When she wants what she wants and doesn't get it, she will let you know! If we just distract her, then she will be fine, but it has to be with something good.

She loves to be outside. In fact, if she is in a fussy mood, we will take her for a walk or go outside. She loves her walks. This is a picture of her "saying HI" to the airplanes flying above. I never realized how many planes fly above our house until Ava. As soon as she hears one, she looks up for it and gets super excited.